Todd and Melissa Moschella, assistant professor of philosophy at The Catholic University of America in Washington, D.C., said that the two pontiffs helped to explain the Church's respect for the dignity of women in a way that could be understood by a modern and changing world.

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Moschella argued that the two saints' positions are important to consider in a world that defines women's rights and ability to participate in society by their access to products and procedures such as contraception and abortion.

"It's an illusion to think that's an issue of women's liberation," she said, criticizing modern culture's tendency to use technology to render women infertile in order to conform to men's roles in the workplace.

In contrast, she said, both Popes championed a more flexible workplace that respects women's role as caretakers for children or family members, as well as recognizing the important work that women do both in the home and outside of it.

Moschella also noted that while many people today think of the Church's beliefs as "anti-woman" and oppressive, women in the Early Church recognized that Catholic teaching on sexuality, dignity and womanhood was "in accordance with their dignity," and in fact, "it was those teachings that made women flock to the Church."

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Moschella commented that Pope John XXIII also revived the Church's emphasis on the inherent dignity and equality of women in calling the Second Vatican Council.
The council's purpose, she noted, "wasn't to define new doctrine," but to re-present the "perennial light of faith," including the Church's teachings on human persons, in such a way "that will resonate today."

The emphasis which the council placed on "the universal call to holiness" was significant, she said, because it was a reminder that "we're all called to holiness."

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The work of St. John XXIII was continued and deepened by St. John Paul II, Moschella continued, particularly through his Theology of the Body, Letter to Women, and Mullieris Dignitatem.

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In these works, the Pope particularly focused on "the equal dignity of man and woman as equally in the image and likeness of God," Moschella explained.
His teachings illuminate that "there's a richness of that equal dignity that isn't a sameness," and that men and women have a "complementarity of gifts," rather than the same roles.

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Misunderstanding this Marian nature of the Church leads to a misunderstanding of the priesthood, Moschella continued, such as a distorted view of the all-male priesthood "as a position of power and privilege instead of just one more way to serve, which is really what it's all about."

Melissa Moschella, who recently received her PhD in politics from Princeton University, is a graduate of Harvard and has a Licentiate in Philosophy from the Pontifical University of the Holy Cross in Rome.Her dissertation, "Parental Rights in Education," defends parental rights to direct the education of their children with minimal state interference.
She has published articles related to the HHS mandate, religious freedom, parental rights, and conscience rights in The New York Times, The New York Daily News, National Review Online, and The Public Discourse, the online journal published by the Witherspoon Institute, in which an earlier version of this article appeared (thepublicdiscourse.com/2012/07/5897).
She is a fellow at the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty, and beginning this fall she will be a post-doctoral research associate at Princeton's James Madison Program for American Ideals and Institutions, and a lecturer in philosophy at Manhattanville College.

Its essential to learn how to practice the freedom of acceptance, Melissa Moschella, an assistant professor of philosophy at Catholic University of America and a volunteer with Catholic Voices USA, says, reflecting on Fr. Philippes talk.

"It's essential to learn how to practice the freedom of acceptance," Melissa Moschella, an assistant professor of philosophy at Catholic University of America and a volunteer with Catholic Voices USA, says, reflecting on Fr. Philippe's talk.